10 Things You May Not Know About Glock

Sure, you carry and love your polymer framed G-gun often and love taking it to the range. While you may know the firearm inside and out, there may be some trivia about Glocks themselves that you may not know.

We decided to bring ten little known tidbits about yours and ours favorite modern safe action pistol out in public. Many of these factoids grace the page of Paul Barrett's landmark work on the gun and its inventor, Glock: The Rise of America's Gun, published in 2012.

Without further delay:

1. When designing his first handgun, Mr. Glock carried around a Walther P-38 military pistol in his pants pocket for two weeks. This led to his guns to have a minimum of surface controls since he could not remember whether he had the DA/SA Walther on 'safe' or not.

2. Glock had been invited to send his gun to the US Army pistol trials in 1984 to compete against Colt, S&W, SIG, and others for the US military's next service pistol to replace the venerable Colt 1911. Glock declined because he could not come up with 35 test guns to meet the specs in time for the trails. The Beretta Model 92, as the M9 pistol, was adopted after these trials and is the standard issue handgun to the military today.

3. Gaston Glock is a naturalist and enjoys taking vigorous morning swims, sans suit. This often happens in the near frozen lakes in Austria around his home where Jack Frost is known to bite more than your nose.

4. Glock's first products for the Austrian military were survival knives, not guns.

5. The Glock 17, the first successful polymer framed pistol, was designed by Gaston Glock between 1980 and 1982. The name of Glock's pistol comes not from it's 17-round magazine capacity but from being Gaston Glock's 17th patented invention. His previous inventions range from kitchen equipment to improvements on curtain rods.

6. The Smith and Wesson Sigma, often jokingly called the "Swock" for its close resemblance to the Glock came about after Steve Melvin, newly hired CEO of Smith & Wesson, told his design team in 1991, "If you can't come up with a better handgun than Glock, then copy the motherf**ker!" This gun led to a lawsuit from Glock for patent infringement.

7. Glock created the Model 25 and 28 pistols, until this year the company's only 380s, specifically for sales in Latin American countries (Mexico, Argentina, etc.) in which civilians cannot own a gun chambered in any larger caliber.

8. The inventor was attacked in a bizarre incident in Europe in which a former French Foreign Legion commando turned hitman attacked him in a parking lot with a mallet. Although 70 years old at the time, Glock managed to bloody and knock his younger attacker unconscious with his bare hands. (Note to self, do not bring a mallet to a Glock fight.)

9. German is often the primary language spoken in the executive office for Glock, even in the company's satellite office in Smyrna, Georgia.

10. The elite commandos of the Danish military, stationed above the Arctic Circle in the Greenland Sirius Sledge Patrol, have to use whatever weapons they can find that are capable of functioning in the severe cold of their operational area. Their isolated patrols have to be ready to defend themselves from passing foreign frogmen as well as polar bears. Their weapons of choice: 100-year-old .30.06 Remington Enfield P17 rifles and Glock Model 20 pistols in 10mm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCTw6WNx_-4

Sirius Patrol recruiting ad, in which you will see a Glock 10mm show up several times. If we had to tackle a polar bear with a pistol, the G20 would be high on our list of options...right behind a sawn off double barrel 8-gauge.